Ask a Beta Tester: Spectral gryphons, prospecting, and portals

Only six-ish days of Ask a Beta Tester left! Whatever will we do!? Well, we'll go on with our lives probably. I mean, we'll have Wrath of the Lich King. Who cares?
Have you heard anything about ghosts being able to go through mountains in WotLK, so they can reach their destinations faster? My friend told me that is what is going to happen, and I hope that it will go live!
Nope, that's not the case, sorry. However, in some zones (Icecrown, Storm Peaks) you get to ride a ghostly gryphon when you're dead, so you can fly to your corpse. Both of those zones have a huge emphasis on mountainside base camps and tall cliffs and places you can only get by flying, so the gryphon is very nice. No running through mountains though.
Erika asked...
When LK comes out are we going to have to build up the starting areas like we did with the SSO or Can I chill a few days on an alt while I let everybody start their DK and stuff?
No, we don't have to do anything like that in the Northrend starter zones. The quest hubs and all of that are already there. The only thing slightly similar is in Icecrown. Through world phasing, you help the Argent Crusade and Knights of the Ebon Blade take bits and pieces of territory from the Scourge. That's purely single-player (or group) content though, it doesn't require work from the server as a whole.
Sielanas asked...
How easy is it to obtain the new gems? What should we prospect early and are there any mining nodes that have better frequency of getting a freebie?
It's about the same as The Burning Crusade as far as rarity. Blue quality gems will be a little harder to get than green ones, both from mining and prospecting. And like The Burning Crusade, high quality nodes will likely have a better droprate on gems than the lower quality ones. When you're leveling Jewelcrafting you'll probably be prospecting Cobalt a lot early on, but once you've moved past it you won't bother with it much ever again, much like Fel Iron in TBC. Saronite is probably the way to go.
LordV asked......
I'm not sure if this has been asked or answered yet but here goes! Mages can head to Dalaran at level 71. I was wondering if there are any level restrictions on the Teleport and or Portal spells or can mages learn said spells as soon as they arrive?
You get to learn the Teleport spell as soon as you hit Dalaran. The Portal spell, however, you learn at level 74. So the level most of us are finally able to go to Dalaran ourselves for the first time, you're able to start bringing your friends up no matter their level.
Marathan asked...
Some time ago, there was a talk about new player character models for Wrath - and even some bugged pictures. So the question is, are they going live? Are we finally going to get improved graphics on our characters?
There weren't any new models in the beta, but there were 'new' skins. And you don't want them to go live. Trust me. They were horrible. Imagine you have a plastic bag. And you put the end of a vacuum inside of it, and sucked out all of the air. The bag would get all shriveled and pulled in on itself. That's what the 'new' Human Female skins looked like. Deflated and shriveled.
Gnomes and Tauren also suffered from these weird skins. It was as if a gorilla grabbed two handfuls of face, yanked them off, squished the face about between their fingers, and slapped it back on haphazardly.
You did not want these skins. They were abominations unto the Light. People who liked them need to be burned at the stake, because surely they are agents of evil here to sew discord, sorrow, and teh ugliez.
Filed under: Human, Gnomes, Tauren, Analysis / Opinion, Expansions, Jewelcrafting, Wrath of the Lich King






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
rufihoe Nov 7th 2008 1:44PM
/signed...
I play a human female and saw the models on BETA.
They were TERRIBLE!
crazyfool Nov 7th 2008 1:44PM
I'm pretty sure those new skins were meant to go with the Death Knights, along with the new, darker skins.
Orenus Nov 7th 2008 1:53PM
Those skins were just for testing the ability to roll out new skins in a patch, if I remember correctly. They were never actually intended for use.
WatcherZero Nov 7th 2008 2:05PM
Yes, it was just a test of how much adding new charachter skins would increase the size of a patch file by, always intended as a technical test of delivery mechanisms not of the content itself, the actual skins they used were old alpha skins from vanilla.
Nevermindz Nov 7th 2008 1:45PM
Question:
I heard that spirit will be more useful for both DPS casters and healers in Wrath that it is now, is it true? How?
Are there any other changes to other stats?
Thanks.
Adesworth Nov 7th 2008 1:50PM
As far as caster DPS goes:
Shadow priests got the talent Improved Mind Tap and Warlocks got both a new Life Tap mechanic and a revised Fel Armor. Mages got nothing yet. No changes to the stat itself were made, only to how the classes benefit from it so Blizz can put it on all cloth gear.
Turtlehead Nov 7th 2008 8:45PM
They've been trying to make spirit a top stat for casters for a long time and are still falling on their face. You'll end up with tons of it, want it or not. It's not *bad* but it's still not going to be what you really want from itemization.
Whichever drops end up with good caster stats without the spirit are going to be the hot items everyone blows DKP on.
James Nov 7th 2008 1:46PM
Im 375 JC , I disagree with the fel iron being useless comment, I prospect fel iron on a daily basis to get low quality gems for my Brilliant glass.
Now do i need to ignore the comment and assume cobalt , fel irons equivalent, will be prospected thru 80.
Finaly, i have to ask whether or not there is an equal to brilliant glass..... i really hope so =)
- James -
Amaxe Nov 7th 2008 5:43PM
I find prospecting all the ores are useful still: prior to the expansion, people are still wanting to buy the prospected gems for levelling their skill
Runstadrey Nov 7th 2008 1:54PM
When I start WoW after installing the WotLK dvd, will my addons already be there, or will I need to do some manual moving?
Essentially, does Wrath install to the same directory structure where TBC lives now?
RogueJedi86 Nov 7th 2008 2:24PM
Same directory. All it'll do is add a new mpq file in your WoW/Data folder, most likely expansion-2.mpq
Kibibi Nov 7th 2008 1:58PM
Yeah, they were a bit, errm, 'bad.' Ok, ok... let's not skip around the issue. When I saw my gnome in the beta I was like: "OMG! Kill it! Kill it with fire!" *grabs the eye bleach...*
Riley Nov 7th 2008 3:38PM
strangely enough, that's the same thing i think whenever i see a gnome
Adam Nov 7th 2008 2:01PM
Are there benchmarks while leveling for applying enchantments? I would assume that around 75ish you can start to get a few enchantments that will help you lvl to 80.
Azzeron Nov 7th 2008 2:12PM
I'm not sure if this has been asked already, but, I've heard rumors that the 10- and 25-man bosses of an instance have the same loot tables. And that the only difference from killing a boss in the 10-man version as opposed to the 25-man version, is that they drop different amounts of loot (2 epics for 25-man, 1 epic for 10). Is this true?
Shadiix Nov 7th 2008 2:21PM
No, this is not true. The 10 man and 25 man versions of dungeons have completely different loot tables, the item levels are not even the same. I can't common on the number of drops per boss because i didn't make it that far in beta but the gear itself is different, the 25 man gear is better than the 10 man gear because the 25 man version is more difficult.
Arthur Nov 7th 2008 2:21PM
No, thats not true. There are completely different loot tables for 10 and 25 man. The 25 man of Naxx drops better gear than the 10 man version. There have been rough alignments saying that the 25 man version of loot from one instance is about on par with the 10 man version of the loot from the next instance. If it was implemented this way in TBC that would be like a 25 man version of Karazhan dropping gear on par with the 10 man verison of SSC.
However the tiered loot from the 10 and 25 man instance have the same model with different coloring, and the 25 man instance have vastly superior stats.
RogueJedi86 Nov 7th 2008 2:26PM
Why are all these old questions about Championing and 10/25-mans coming back around? They were all answered months ago, and now they come back to waste away the last days of "Ask a beta tester".
Different Loot Tables
Different Raid IDs
Different Raid Timers/Cooldowns
Default Northrend faction without a tabard on
Championing only works in level 80 dungeons and raids.
Azzeron Nov 8th 2008 8:31PM
Thank you very much! This makes me glad, because, if we were just going to get the EXACT same loot, then it's like "What's the point?". I was curious because I stay well up to date with Wrath news, but during a recent guild meeting discussing wrath and our plans when it launches, our guild leader said this, and that got me a little worried. But now I can tell him he's wrong! Thanks again, guys. :)
Marathan Nov 7th 2008 2:23PM
Heh, oh well. I was kinda hoping we'd have new, updated character looks... Not anything like a revolutionary framerates-eater, but at least better noses and stuff.
Also... I still wonder why male Gnomes and Night Elves can't have eyebrows without having a beard. o_O